In the beginning, God made seven Houses of angels, who forged reality out of the void of non-existence: the House of the Dawn, angels of radiance and fire, God's Heralds to Creation; the House of the Firmament, angels of the winds and the breath of life; the House of the Fundament, angels of earth and matter; the House of the Spheres, angels of pattern and fate, the House of the Deep, angels of the waters and desire; the House of the Wild, angels of nature; and the House of the Second World, angels of death.

The pinnacle of the Houses' collective act of creation was mankind, destined to be a reflection of all the greatest traits of God and Angels and beyond. Except it didn't happen. Everyone waited and humans were still focused entirely on humping and eating anything they saw. The angels tried to ask God what was wrong with them, but anybody who went to see him didn't come back, with the best case scenario being that God assimilated them and worst case unmade them.

Impatient and feeling abandoned, a third of the angels decided to just give humans the blessings of civilization themselves. For this, they were cast out from the angelic host, punished by seeing their gifts to humanity twisted to bring humanity low, and branded with new names to signify their new status. The House of the Dawn became the Namaru, the Devils. The House of the Firmament became the Asharu, the Scourges. The House of the Fundament became the Annunaki, the Malefactors. The House of the Spheres became the Neberu, the Fiends. The House of the Deep became the Lammasu, the Defilers. The House of the Wild became the Rabisu, the Devourers. And the House of the Second World became the Halaku, the Slayers.

There was war then, between the loyalists and the rebels, war for countless mortal generations, the rebels steadily making themselves into true monsters as it progressed. In the end, the loyalists triumphed, and the vanquished rebels were sealed in a featureless abyss.

Millennia later, the Abyss cracked open as a great storm raged across the realms of the dead, and the fallen angels began escaping, with the weakest demons slipping through the cracks first. Weakened, they had to possess the bodies of dying or comatose humans to survive. There was no sign of any angels or God's influence left in the world, which was now filled instead with jaded humans and unfamiliar supernatural creatures. During their time in the Pit, the demons had fractured into five factions, which came to color their philosophies now that they were free: those who wish to destroy all of creation to spite an absent God (Raveners), those who see Lucifer as the Messiah of both mankind and angels (Luciferians), those who want to fashion mankind into a weapon to destroy God (Faustians), those who seek redemption and repentance (Reconcilers), and those who have come to the sinking realization that all of this was probably what God wanted to happen (Cryptics), and want to figure out why God would want this, of all things?

This RPG provides examples of:

A God Am I: The Earthbound present themselves like this to their cultists, and many of them are insane enough to seriously believe in this.

Alien Geometries: The Lore of Paths can bend space for any number of effects, it's possible to, in effect, turn a crack in the wall into a six-foot-wide corridor or change the angle of a street you're driving down.

Once, during the War of Wrath, Malefactors cut off an entire city from normal reality by simply removing any path between it and the rest of the world. The Loyalist Host started down the road to the city, and ended up on the other side without finding it.

Always Chaotic Evil: All demons initially are this. Only by merging with the body and mind of a human, like all protagonist demons do, can they hope to break free from their all-consuming hatred. The Earthbound demons, who inhabit inanimate objects instead, embody this trope without exception.

And I Must Scream: Imprisonment in the Abyss. By the way: Every single player character has lived through it for several thousand years.

Animorphism: Two Visages of the Devourers, the Demons of the Wild (the third being an idealized version of their mortal form).

Crapsack World: Standard for the gameline. In this case it might actually be the demon's fault. Or God's. Or humanity's, or maybe this is just the way things are supposed to be.

Dark Is Not Evil: The demons certainly aren't all evil, and the reason they're in this mess now is because they chose humans over God.

Or it is. The more evil the demon is, the more like a demon he looks. Truly benevolent ones look angelic.

Depends on the type of demon. Nicer Slayers still look like dark angels, just, you know, pretty ones.

Deal with the Devil: The demons can strike bargains with mortals, granting them boons, such as superhuman abilities, in exchange for a steady trickle of Faith. Unfortunately for mortals, becoming a demon's thrall means granting a demon access to one's soul and ability to ravage it for extra Faith, at the cost of major harm to the thrall...

Death Is Cheap: Kind of. Destruction of its host body does not kill a demon and he can try to find a new body or possess an inanimate object (becoming one of the Earthbound) before being drawn back into the Abyss. However, demons can be made Deader Than Dead, as this process causes permanent loss of power, whittling the demon to nothingness if he loses bodies too often; and other demons can attempt to devour a disembodied demonic spirit, to absorb its power and knowledge.

Demonic Possession: All of the characters. Thankfully, demons are usually able to possess only the comatose, suicidal or dying.

Evil Feels Good: Subverted. Demons' Karma Meter is called "Torment" for a reason. High-Torment demons (and all of the Earthbound) invariably are insane, screwed up monsters.

Face-Heel Turn: Every Demon did this as part of the back story. They started out as noble idealists. War against their own kind, followed by eons of imprisonment in the abyss, twisted them into hateful monsters. Player Characters are the ones who managed a subsequent Heel-Face Turn (or are at least capable of trying).

God Is Evil: Here things get confusing. The general demon line is "God is a dick, and we were right to rebel". The problem comes when you realize that God's version of events is never told. Every account of the War of Wrath is from a demon's first-person viewpoint, and they don't seem to line up. Even the demonic accounts claim they did some truly horrible things before getting sent to Hell. There's a faction, the Reconcilers, who have as their central conceit that God was right about the whole mess. All that said, God doesn't do a lot to counteract the general "God is on the bad side" line, having denied humanity sapience without a word of explanation (even the angels who were loyal admitted that one).

The overriding feeling is more God Is Apathetic. Given the fact that the World of Darkness is such a crapsack world, perhaps He just gave up on the whole thing. Not to mention that a free and sapient humanity managed to create the Crapsack World, even without the presence of the Earthbound: After all, even many of the supernatural threats were once human.

Gods Need Prayer Badly: Evocations are powered by Faith, which is a rare thing to find in the World of Darkness.

Good Feels Good: The more a Demon works to heal the world's many wounds, the more his or her own Torment is eased.

Have You Seen My God?: God and the loyalist angels are nowhere to be seen in the modern era; one supplement gives guidelines for making angels, though.

Oh, and Lucifer is AWOL as well, having never been sent to the Abyss. He's supposedly Walking the Earth though and messing around with the Meta Plot of other gamelines.

He Who Fights Monsters: The Fallen became profoundly less sympathetic as the war against heaven raged on, as the the millennia long conflict became more brutal and vicious and the rebels became much more jaded and bitter. Some of them even began to turn on humanity, as misunderstanding and frustration turned to outright rancor and distain.

Hive Mind: The Lore of the Firmament can allow a Scourge to remotely control his or her thralls and sense what they sense.

Holy Ground: Played With; The Fallen (a.k.a. demons) can walk upon holy ground (such as old churches)óbut only if their Torment is low. Otherwise, stepping onto a holy ground kills their host bodies quickly and efficiently.

Humanity Ensues: To stay on Earth, demons need to take a human host. For some demons (e.g. PCs) possession can shock them out of their Torment, as they experience human memories for the first time; for others, however, it has little effect.

Karma Meter: Torment, which is unusual in that it goes up. At 10, you fall so deeply into hatred and revenge that you can never come back. Conversely, reaching zero torment would hypothetically redeem the fallen back into their angelic self. However, this is impossible through normal mechanics, but with proper roleplay...

Knight Templar: A great deal of the angels who didn't rebel, if demons are to be believed about this, and some of the ones who did.

Most particularly Usiel, who never joined the rebellion but Fell anyway because he slaughtered an entire valley of people just to get at Gaviel.

Little Miss Almighty: It is implied that the (old) World Of Darkness' God is female; the folks pushing this are Devils, so take from that what you will.

Of course, given that God is said to exist on multiple levels of reality at once, this is likely to be true. God is female, and male, and both, and neither, and a third gender that doesn't exist in life on earth, and, and...

Love Hungry: A few demons, and mind control makes it easier, and if done "right" gains the demon spiritual power.

Mad Scientist: A number of the Malefactors fall into this category, as do a few of the Devourers. One of them is directly responsible for the demons losing the war against heaven thanks to her experiments.

Mind Rape: The side effect of reaping Faith from an unwilling mortal. The Earthbound-exclusive Lore of Violation's second rank power is called "Mind Rape." Both kinds cause physical damage as well as psychological.

No Social Skills: A common flaw amongst the Malefactors (who find humans uncomfortably unpredictable) and the Slayers (who have a tendency towards isolation). The Devourers have a decided tendency towards this, as they're often tactless and aggressive.

Omnicidal Maniac: The Raveners, who want to kill every living thing and destroy everything that isn't living; the idea is to spite God by destroying Creation. Some of the Earthbound also qualify.

One-Winged Angel: Every demon has an "Apocalyptic Form," a reflection of the angelic Lore they embody the most. They can take on this form for extra power, as well as to reap Faith from mortals. Low-Torment demons generally have a beautiful apocalyptic form, but even they can go one-wing if the fight turns against them and they need to tap into their Superpowered Evil Side.

Original Man: Of the "modern humans are pathetically frail by comparison" variety. Adam and Eve were supposed to be the ultimate lifeforms and we just can't measure up.

Our Souls Are Different: Angels/Demons don't actually have souls. They're the celestial equivalent of software, and they can be deleted or made into hand puppets if someone discovers their true name. Demonically possessing a human (even an Empty Shell) gives them direct access to a human soul, which lets them experience (among other, less pleasant things) real love for the first time. This is part of what frees them from Torment after leaving the Abyss.

Self-Inflicted Hell: There is no punishment in the Abyss but the rage and pain of those trapped within it.

Or is it? The demons are described as existing several dimensions above humanity's ability to comprehend, while modern day Earth is a single plane of existence. The Abyss is nothing, leaving the demons with only their rage, pain, and each other for millennia, able to see/feel the World of Darkness. Which isn't pleasant, seeing as how it's a Crapsack World.

Shout-Out: Earthbound Belial, one of Lucifer's five most powerful subordinates before the imprisonment, looks a lot like Cthulhu. Or at least the reliquary inhabited by his spirit does, as his manifestation is said to be so horrible that it defies description.

In the tie-in novels, the Trilogy of the Fallen, one demon happens upon a vampire, to which he immediately reacts, "Caine? Is that you?"

Spider Limbs: The high-Torment apocalyptic form of the Neberu's Lore of Patterns.

Vampiric Draining: All Elohim require Divine Faith to live and cast magic, and the only way the Fallen can obtain it is from humans, the image of God. For this, they can either reveal themselves to certain humans and let their Faith trickle to them constantly, or reap them for all their Faith in a one-time boost. Unlike vampires, demons don't actually expend Faith by merely existing.

With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Apocalyptic forms of demons not only automatically grow more powerful with accumulation of Torment, but also can be powered up temporarily by accepting more Torment. Moreover, the Earthbound are considerably more powerful (although much fewer in number) than normal Fallen.

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